Mentored youth hunters will have more antlerless deer
hunting opportunities in the 2012-14 hunting license year, if the Pennsylvania
Board of Game Commissioners gives final approval to allow an adult mentor to
transfer one deer management assistant program permit to a mentored youth.

The board gave preliminary approval to the change at its
meeting Tuesday, with Board President Ralph Martone noting, "Sporting
organizations and other interested groups have continued to express an interest
in having the Game Commission expand the MYHP opportunities."

A mentored youth is a young hunter who has not yet reached
the age of 12, at which he or she could obtain a junior hunting license. He or
she hunts under the direct one-to-one supervision of an adult hunter.

The hunting opportunities for a mentored youth hunter are
restricted in comparison to those of a junior hunter, but the list of species
that a mentored youth can hunt has been steadily expanded by the board.

If the most recent change, which commissioners gave preliminary
approval on Tuesday, is given final approval at a future meeting, beginning in
the 2013-14 license year, an adult mentor could transfer one DMAP harvest permit issued to him
to an eligible mentored youth.

DMAP permits are issued for specific tracts to help
landowners manage the deer population on their lands by harvesting more
antlerless deer than the overall regional allocation of doe hunting licenses
might allow.

The mentored youth hunter program was launched in
Pennsylvania in 2006, and in 2009 mentored youth were first required to obtain
permits to participate. That first year, 28,542 mentored youth permits were
issue, which increased to 30,790 in 2011 and 33,514 last year.

Commissioners also gave final approval to a regulatory
change giving wildlife conservation officers more enforcement power against
all-terrain vehicle and snowmobile misuse on state game lands and private lands
enrolled in the commission's hunter access program.

Martone noted that illegal operation of ATVs continues to be
"one of our biggest issues."

Without the regulatory changes now in place, the commission's
WCOs did not have authority to enforce summary offenses under the state's motor
vehicle code and instead forwarded those violations to other authorities, which
often resulted in less than full penalties for the violators.

In other action, commissioners gave final approval to moving
the upland sandpiper, a grassland nesting bird long-classified as threatened, to
the state's endangered species list, and adding the northern harrier and the
long-eared owl to the state's threatened species list.